Her Royal Cuteness

We have learnt...

...that being crazy tired and bleary-eyed doesn't stop us from being crazy in love with our beautiful little daughter.

Of babies and DVDs (Anna)

Picture this. You have an overdue DVD that needs to go back to the video store. You have a screaming baby who is not so happy about being put into her car seat. So you put the DVD on the top of the car to free up your hands while you wrestle with the baby. Somehow, you get the flailing sweet-smelling-but-noisy bundle of arms and legs into the seat. Somehow, you get the seatbelts crossing at the correct angles and tightened so there's no wobbling. You breathe a sigh of relief and get into the driver's seat. And drive off...

When you pick up your partner from work, she innocently asks "Did you remember the DVD?" at which point you accuse her of sitting on it, before the realization - like rosy-fingered dawn on the horizon - slowly makes its way across your consciousness. When you return home, of course there is no sign of said DVD.

Oh, and by the way, when I say "you" I mean Caroline. :)

(She's currently rolling her eyes and saying "When did our blog become an opportunity to make fun of me...?" I assure her that that has always been its primary purpose...:))

Black humour (Anna)

On our current low-sleep diet, we find that sometimes the proper words for things aren't quite on the tips of our tongues. There was an example the other day that Freud would have been proud of.

Emma was being squarky (a catch-all term for generally restless and unsoothable). Sometimes, putting her into her vibrating chair calms her down. Caroline, who was very tired and had been struggling with a squarky baby for several hours, sighed deeply and said, "Ok, Emmy. If we put you in the electric chair, will you be quiet then?"

And, you know...she probably would. But we might stick to the vibrating chair for now. :)

A little housey (Anna)

It's probably pretty obvious that this blog is mostly about Emma and our lives as parents. Of course, there are all sorts of things that happen in our lives that don't make it to the blog. And there are all sorts of other versions of ourselves that we really don't mention at all. Sometimes that's deliberate and sometimes we're just too busy getting on with things to remember to blog about them. And of course, there's any number of blog entries that we write in our heads but never actually get around to writing because we're too tired.

But there's one thing that has happened recently that I will post about...

We have bought a house!

We've been pondering it for a while and knew we would need to move soon, since our current place is small. But we thought we would ponder it some more and have a look at some places and mull it over and ponder it some more. And then think about it and have a look at some other places and see what felt right and ponder it and...well, you get the picture. But then we found a place we love, at the the right price, in the right place, and our job situations and finances and the economy all came together, and we bought it! We move in in June - while my parents (Emmy's Granny Heath and Grandad) are here! I love the idea that they will metaphorically "tuck us in" to our new place.

So, the times, they are a-changin'.

A party for Emma (Anna)

Today, we attended a party thrown for Emma by some of Caroline's work colleagues - her "UBC family" as the card read. They have all watched Caroline's belly grow during her pregnancy, teased her about her "pregnancy brain" and were amazingly supportive when Emma was born. So today, Emma was the centre of attention with a variety of wonderful people cooing over her adoringly and showering her with lovely, thoughtful gifts. A couple of large photos of our cute little one (poached from this blog) took pride of place near the snacks, which made my heart melt (and triggered that wonderful and awe-inspiring  thought: "Wow, that's our daughter!"). Of course, we took the camera and of course we forgot to use it. But it was a lovely celebration and reminded us - yet again - how lucky we are to be surrounded by such terrific people and how much love surrounds Emma as she finds her place in the world. 

We also discovered that this blog has a lot more followers than we realised! 

 

Life Lessons: As You Sow, So Shall You Reap (Anna)

Emma's favourite play buddy at the moment is the mirror baby, who appears on her vibrating chair and above her play mat.

Emma has long conversations with her mirror baby, babbling away to herself, trying out new moves and kicking her legs frantically. She obviously enjoys her company.

But occasionally, the mirror baby makes grumpy faces and makes Emma cry. Emma looks at us with her big blue eyes and wails as if to say "Mums, she's being mean to me." And as good parents, we try to help them to play happily together, by teaching Emma "If you smile at the mirror baby, she'll smile back. If you're mean to her, she'll be mean to you!"

But sometimes, we just have to separate them and give them time to cool down before they play together again.

Eight weeks old! (Anna and Caroline)

Emma is eight weeks old today!

Some of our favourite photos from our daily lives below. More and more show Emma with her eyes open, ready and alert to take in the world. And then, of course, there're photos like the one of Caroline and Emma having story time - one of my personal favourites. Caroline was passionately reading and putting on all the voices while Emmy snoozed away. I guess early literacy comes in many forms :)

She loves her vibrating chair. She loves playing with the mirror baby - they seem to have a lot in common. She loves to lie on her back and kick her legs vigorously. She smiles a lot now. She will spend hours staring at our faces. She is very content in her new baby carrier (and her weight is more evenly distributed on our shoulders, so we're more content, too). She also screams and cries and generally makes her voice heard, and has started cooing happily as well, sometimes all in the same two minutes. She has strong legs, and likes to climb up our chests, using our belly buttons as a foot hold if we let her. And she loves cuddles, and snuggles, which suits us, because we love those things too. But she still scrunches up her face when we kiss her. And, we must confess, we kiss her an awful lot.

The middle one is Emma having a cuddle with her Opa/Grandpa - an older photo but one we have been meaning to post for a while.

Ahh, peace (Anna)

After crying all day yesterday, today Emmy was mostly calm and peaceful, gazing at us with her big blue eyes and taking in the world. She's been practising her burgeoning smile, one of the most beautiful sights we have ever seen. And having learnt to squeak, squawk and scream, she is now learning how to squeal. We have some lovely conversations with her.

Tired (Anna)

How is it possible for such a little human being to cry for so long without taking a breath? She's been at it ALL DAY. We, like so many parents before us, go through all the possible causes and try out every technique we know, one by one. Almost all of them work - for about 10 seconds or even 3 minutes. And then we have no choice but to smile ruefully at each other, exhausted, and remind ourselves "Sometimes babies just cry."

Mirror, mirror (Anna)

Caroline is at the gym and I'm pretending to be writing, but actually I'm watching Emma in admiration.

A friend lent us a vibrating chair for her - we were planning to buy one anyway, because we've heard that a lot of babies love them. Well, Emma is one of those babies.

A few days ago, she completely ignored the objects hanging down in front of her and we figured she wasn't ready for them. But she's just discovered the mirror hanging down. She can see herself in it (obviously) and is absolutely fascinated by it. In fact, she is cooing at it and having a great conversation, kicking her legs and generally showing a lot of interest. She's also worked out a great game. She's started smiling recently (the cutest thing you've ever seen) but mostly smiles when someone smiles at her first. So with the mirror, she will smile one of her "accidental" smiles and the baby in the mirror smiles back. Then Emma forgets that she initiated it and imitates the baby and smiles back. Then the baby in the mirror smiles again, and Emma imitates her. It's amazing to watch. And very, very beautiful.

Gotta go...she's just started crying...pretty sure it's a dirty nappy type of cry...